Miscellaneous Chatter > Writing

Writing and selling books - the advocation of silence?

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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Meyna ---The real currency is the production potential of the society in question, and money is a way to keep track of things -- in theory, at least. Things like loans complicate matters, not to mention the inherent messiness of putting a concept like this into practice. Madness, value does count, but it is quite subjective and liable to oscillate due to cultural trends.

The history of currency and markets has a lot of depth to it, and it can be a very interesting subject.

Back to the issue at hand. Speaking (and by extension, writing) is as human a characteristic as it gets. For the sake of argument, let's assume that every human in a particular society, society x, wants to speak and to be heard. Like our society, society x is one of specialists, that is, they acquire their needs of food and water indirectly by contributing something else to the community in exchange for these needs, using money as the mediator (and "potential" budget). As long as enough food and water is produced for the community, it doesn't really matter what these specialists do. As long as society x places high value in writing and speaking, the community will tolerate 100% of their specialists engaging in such ventures.

In cases where it's not tolerated, then that silence is imposed either implicitly or explicitly, yes. It's not really the system that demands this; rather, it has to do with whether the society in question has developed in a way that tolerates it.
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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Callan S. ---For myself, I say desperation is the key currency. We have the all too normalised idea of governments (the descendants of english war lords, for us in the west) saying they own land.

Just an amazing fiction. I mean never mind people who go on about the idea that conciousness is illusory and all that complicated stuff, when we leave such a simplistic illusion intact! No one owns land! The idea of owning land or anything is just a made up concept.

Sometimes that idea can stop us from taking all the life giving resources from someone. But ironically that idea can also be used to take away life giving resources from someone as well. Ie, the government says it owns all the land and if you want to live on it, you have to buy it, or pay rent to someone for it, or be moved on by the person who did buy it or rents it, who directs a gang in blue to assist you in your moving on.

Who has the capacity to opt out of the system when all land is 'owned'? You can't just plan to leave the system by growing all your own food. Land tax, mah friend, land tax!

You are put in a desperate position.

And this is what underwrites money.


Meyna,

--- Quote ---Like our society, society x is one of specialists, that is, they acquire their needs of food and water indirectly by contributing something else to the community in exchange for these needs, using money as the mediator (and "potential" budget). As long as enough food and water is produced for the community, it doesn't really matter what these specialists do. As long as society x places high value in writing and speaking, the community will tolerate...
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Eh, you mentioned money as the mediator before - how is this an example of tolerance?

If the community produced extra food (and shelter) that anyone could take, and some dudes did so they could write lots and everyone went 'yep, working as intended', I'd call that tolerance.
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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Meyna ---Tolerance and value are intertwined, in this case. If the perceived value of the products of the specialists is high, then the community will have no issue with giving away any extra food and water (and shelter, indeed) to support them. If the value is low, then, even if there are extra resources to go around, the community might not be so thrilled to give them away. They might even say "do something that we value more, or get back to producing needs."

Money isn't exactly required in any of these cases, though it is far easier to trade dollars for eggs instead of going through a trading chain because the egg person only wants to trade milk for their eggs and you only have wheat to start with.
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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Madness ---This conversation should probably invoke Marx at some point.

Anyone who's played Settlers of Catan knows acutely the stagnation of lacking valued items of trade in a barter society. You can't build houses or roads without wood or brick, no matter how much wheat you reap.

I apologize to both of you, as you seem to be understanding each other without trouble but to summarize and express my confusion: Doesn't value, culturally and socially embodied, determine the conception of economy? Or is it rather my interpretation of scarcity, what I think Callan means by desperation, distinguish an economic system?
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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Meyna ---There is scarcity of needs (or perceived needs) and scarcity of luxuries. I think the idea that Callan is putting forth hinges on how much the society in question values writing. The fact that we are considering writing adds a hidden layer of complexity, though, because though it is not a necessity per se, it is intimately tied to our nature as an extension of language (there are cultures without writing, but bear with me).

I think I am coming to understand what you are trying to say, Madness. Consider this, though: what is originally valuable to an emerging society will determine the initial economy, I agree. However, as the society grows and evolves, certain aspects of the economy might linger simply because of the natural resistance to change. The members of the society might unknowingly cling to certain attributes of the economic system even though they may not serve any purpose or indeed might even hinder the rise of what comes to be seen as valuable in the future. What happens in Callan's proposed situation, though, where a society reaches oversaturation or post-scarcity of something (in this case, writing) that is a cultural need but not a biological luxury?

After all of this pondering, I think that I would have to agree, Callan, with your initial thesis: in our society, specialists who take up writing as a profession depend on there being a niche to fill that is not full to the brim with other writers. On the other hand, there is another aspect to this that I can't figure out, though. Why limit it to only writing? Take your original 200 sample pool. What if 100 of them write a book, and the other 100 make ceramic bowls. The writers depend on buyers for their craft just as much as the ceramicists do. You could have 200 specialists with 200 different crafts and still be left with the same situation. They all depend on acquiring the needs of survival through their craft.

I do believe I am rambling at this point, though, so I will leave it at that for now :lol:
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